For those who collect quotations, the American political landscape of 2011 was fertile terrain indeed. Many of the most memorable utterances were real head-slappers: politicians of both parties bragging, prevaricating, forgetting themselves -- and misremembering the basics of U.S. history. Yet others were uplifting, or disarming by their blunt candor. The same events -- the massacre in Tucson, for example, or the advent of "Arab Spring" -- prompted both oratorical highs and rhetorical lows. Some of the most intriguing utterances had a sense of mystery about them. Was Joe Biden simply being Joe Biden when he said the Taliban is not America's enemy -- or was the vice president foreshadowing a way out of the seemingly endless Afghanistan War? In 2010, Steve Jobs' words to President Obama had been a blunt, ecumenical warning to get the economy moving again; the Apple founder’s last words on Earth in October 2011 helped put our politics in perspective while providing a sense of mystery -- and hope -- to life's final days. The words spewed by some Democrats in the immediate aftermath the Arizona shootings were the most odious of the year. Yet Obama's own soaring speech at a Tucson memorial service helped put Americans in touch with the "better angels of our nature" once invoked by Abraham Lincoln. It was that kind of year.